The GHC Team

GHC has an enormous "surface area", and has grown way beyond the
capacity of any individual, or even research group, to maintain and
develop. Its continued success is built on the active contributions
of a large group of highly talented people, who take responsiblity
for significant parts of the system. This page summarises who does
what.

What it means to "own" part of GHC

Being the owner of a chunk of GHC is a public service. Everyone else gives the owner lots of kudos for looking after X on our behalf.

The owner is the first port of call for guidance about how X works.

If you want to work on X, it makes sense to talk to the owner first, to see what he or she is planning, and to debate the design.

The owner feels a sense of ownership. That means taking responsibility for keeping it clean and beautiful, and refactoring when necessary.

The owner can't be expected to fix every buglet, but feels a sense of responsbility to make sure that serious bugs are fixed.

Owners are expected to step down if they are no longer able to make the time commitment required.

Ownership means being the "first among equals" rather than "having exclusive control":

It does not mean that everyone else can relax and say "oh Fred is dealing with X". Fred needs help!

It does not mean that no changes can happen to X without the owner's say-so, most especially if the owner becomes hard to contact.

It does not mean that the owner can make decisions that the community disagrees with. Being willing to roll up your sleeves lends weight to your voice, but owners should seek consensus for contentious issues.

When contacting an owner, always cc [email protected], so that others can contribute. It's a community thing.

Current Owners

This section lists the current owners of various parts of GHC. If
you'd like to take responsibility for something, tell us (on the
ghc-devs list). Ideally all parts of GHC should have someone who
claims responsibility for it. Although some of these parts are
cross-cutting concerns, we also list the directories in the GHC source
tree that are most directly implicated.